Atramental
by ForeverinMoonlight
Summary: A pity that's all you have.


_Disclaimer: Dynasty Warriors and the characters within it, etc. are not owned by me._

**A/N:** Though Ma Dai is such a cheerful person, it would make sense that he couldn't be that cheerful _all_ the time. I wanted to explore a darker side to him, which has been stated somewhere that he has. Also.. While it doesn't feel like we saw enough of Ma Dai in DW7 or XL to get a clear picture of who he is exactly, I hope this doesn't seem too out of character anyway. ...Rambling over. On with the fic!

* * *

**Atramental**

The world was dark.

Oh so dark.

You could not be a warrior and _not _see that. Every day, every battle, the hardship and misery and _ruin_ encircled. Time after time, clawing and reaching out with hands as bloody as your own.

It trailed. Wherever you went, there it all was. An eternal gathering, leering and lingering and muttering and _not shutting up_.

Chitter-chatter.

Mumble-mumble. Grumble-grumble as they loomed. A collective, dogged weight. Constant reminder.

The world was dark. _The world_ was that reminder. How could he forget? Look around you. Look around you and see, _see _the cracks and the scars and the remains.. Everywhere you turn. Watch.

The world, and the gloom that pervaded it.

-The empty fields with their rotting crops, the charred cinders of that home smoking smoking smothering _remember _the family that _burned_-

Black.

-Over and over the the hollow village.. _hollow_ once so _whole _until they plundered and ravaged with the heat and the swirling, choking background; agony and massacre _murder_ by hearts so cold and-

_Black_.

Everywhere. Pitch. _Black_.

Oh.. He so _disliked _that colour.

You could not escape it. It was so _ugly_, mingling in and perverting the beauty which deserved to exist undisturbed. Free of abuse and corruption, rampant with life and laughter.

How he _loved_ laughter. Merriment and mirth, carefree gaiety – there was nothing better! Happiness like yellow sunshine and green grass on a prosperous spring day. Calm blue skies and whistling as you work and inhale..._Mmm..._ Fresh baozi or vivid wildflowers as children played nearby...

_Laughing _children.

Was there anything more pure and joyous than _laughing children_?

There was certainly nothing to hate about them.

Yet..

_Why _did they come and swing their jagged blades and swing and swing and swipe as mothers screamed and babies cried? Bludgeon fathers, brothers, sons and garrotte their daughters and wives?

Coo-coo... Wail, _wail wa- _Splattering drip drip drip

No. _Forget it.. Shut up._

Only one answer to that earlier question.

_The world was dark_. Blackness, blackness everywhere. Tyrants here, cowards there.

Well.

He wasn't going to let it stand. _No._ If the world wouldn't change, he'd just have to _make _it change _himself_.

Idealism – what a brilliant, shining blaze.

_Take up arms, artisan!_

Take them up, join your family and your cause. Do your duty to your kin and your country and to whatever home you have left. Be a part of this great _new _revolution and follow your beacon towards a plotted, promising cause.

Hold your brush and _paint_..

Paint. Paint. Oh, but look! Watch...

_Watch._

Watch the blood run red. Your own run cold as others' pours out of them, running and running and _running_..-

Clashing-clashing, clanging-clanging steel against steel and banging and yelling and moaning and _screaming_ look -

There's the smoke. Look. Dress your battle wounds, see the scars of your comrades and the haggard faces and the ruins and the emptiness – _look._

Look!

(_Shut up_!)

What good did _seeing_ do. What. Good.

_Seeing _all the time – all around as it _lingers _and that idealism, _oh._

It's dimming. Like each man's spirit out of his hopeless eyes; searching, terror turning into glassy sheen.

All too quickly, it's.. over.

Finality.

_No._

Finality... And all that would be left – all he would _have _would be the _vacuity_, and it just _wouldn't shut up_.

The world was black. Dark. So dark.

How could he stand it, without that _light_? His beacon. _Too _idealistic perhaps; too hot-headed, _so _stubborn and headstrong but the beating heart of the operation _beat beat beat_ his heart wild and driven and...

The light. _The light_, to possibly stave off that darkness.

Yes...

His leader. And what good was a leader when he was compromised?

In fact, what good were his fellow men with their faces so _weary _and their spirits so.. dulled?

_The world was black. _Red, too. Too red. But if Ma Dai could just paint another colour, other than ink as death and tragic crimson, then...

Well..

_It was worth a try._

Yellow and blue and brown and green. _Paint_. Smile! Laugh your troubles away! Lightening the heart surely lightens the soul.

_Paint_. Colours warm and cosy and harmonious like good old times. Black isn't as dark when it's yellow, or white. Beacons needed a backup fire or they'd just fade away.

_Fire... Screaming crying _sobbing

War-cries echoing echoing always _echoing _in his thundering head, sunken paranoia into his skull like a poison you've got _company_. Company that doesn't actually _die, _for a change just presses and presses and presses... Stares.

Stares. Staring faces. _Accusatory_.

Whispering _don't forget_, as he assured again _hey, don't worry... _

Trail after your light no matter where it lead. Trudge into battle after battle after battle because we're fighting for something _beautiful_

– Laughing children now with grisly faces in _agony –_

Pick up the pieces as they shatter, dust them off and pat them down as the edges cut across your inked hands...

Nurse your war wounds and everyone else's – nothing more healing than laughter (but the reserves are drying up)..

Be sure to hold your sagging head high as the road drags on, come on, you can manage a skip! Blank out your numbed mind from the exhaustion bone deep _oh I can't_ no shut. Up! Young master's _counting_ on you!

(..Young master; _young _master God he's so _old _now - )

_Hah._ No sadness here. _Nothing_ as you cut and slay blackest ink on a blacker land still running so very, very red. Bleeding into every _better_ colour, but then he only has finite reserve, compared to the whole _bloody world_.

Harrowing sounds through the crowd. _Couldn't he just bleach his brain?_

(Shut up _shut up_ urgh can't you just be _QUIET_?)

Positivity! That's all he _needed_. Positivity, take it up, take up your arms – _No._.

So.. Bleak..

(As if it could cut through all _that.._)

The gloom..

_A chasm_. Easy to fall into if he wasn't careful, because he was so empty. (He'd even given his _heart _away-) Easy, and the black and the red stained his hands even underneath the gloves.

_Gloves._

Gloves. _Hah._ Pathetic, and superficial, they whispered. _Like your pathetic little mantra_.

What can you paint, that will actually stick? And only far more colour than what you have could drown out the blackest of the black!

Words. All just _talk_. No meaningful _action_.

So _superficial._

_How can _painting_ help anything_, artisan_?_

..Pointless.

(Yes.)

_He knew._

But he was _damn well_ clinging to his 'mantra' because that was almost all he _had. _He would keep painting until his reserves dried up because _that was all that he could do_. Yellow sunshine, green as lush grass, before he forgot what they felt like. Vivid and colourful as flowers, before they wilted completely and were ground into dust.

_Ashes to ashes._

New day. Watch the red sun rise.

_Plaster on a smile_.


End file.
